Records and celebrates the presence and achievements of queer sexuality throughout human culture and history, and even in the animal knigdom

Tuesday, 11 October 2011

Jóhanna Sigurðardóttir, Icelandic Prime Minister

b. October 2nd, 1942.

When she became Iceland’s first female Prime Minister in 2009 following more than a year of public protests over Iceland’s handling of the financial crisis, he broke yet another important barrier by becoming the world’s first open lesbian head of government. The LGBT community around the world cheered, but Sigurðardóttir had no time for celebrations. She had her hads full with the collapse of the island nation’s entire banking system and the stock exchange losing some 90% of its value. She renegotiated Iceland’s payment of bank deposits to holders in Netherlands and Britain — much to the outrage of Icelandic taxpayers — and her government launched several criminal investigations of the banking collapse. Under her stewardship, Iceland’s economic free-fall has been halted, and investors are beginning to return. Iceland has also been working on joining the E.U. since June 2009, which has also helped boost investor confidence.

Jóhanna has been in a Registered Partnership with Jónína Leósdóttir since 2002. When Iceland enacted its marriage equality law in 2010, Jóhanna and Jónína became among the first to convert their legal partnership into a marriage."